Selected Works: 2003-Present
Ward Schumaker
April 19-May 24, 2025
Artist’s Reception: Sat. April 26, 3-5 pm
Suddenly a Body, 2025
Acrylic on canvas
48” x 56”
After a long detour through illustration, design, and life itself, Ward Schumaker returned to painting at 58, drawn back by the raw power of gesture, language, and silence. His work balances the meditative with the expressive—layered paint, hand-rendered text, and repetition become tools for revealing what can’t always be said directly. Words appear, dissolve, and reemerge, shaped by intuition and memory. He draws from music, poetry, politics, and personal history, letting each piece evolve through impulse and erasure. He wants the viewer to feel the weight and motion of the work—less as narrative, more as experience.
I Need Do Nothing, 2003
Acrylic on board
Variable: 24” x 24” x 8 squares
Fidelity Twins, 2016
Acrylic on paper on board
37” x 25”
The Alps, 2009-2010
Acrylic on paper on board
30” x 22”
True Believer (Love), 2014-15 Acrylic on paper on board
36” x 46”
First Fig, 2025
Acrylic on canvas
53” x 36”
This May Sound, 2007
Acrylic on paper on board
50” x 34”
100 People, 2017
Acrylic on canvas
48” x 34”
Gavin Byrars-Jesus’ Blood, 2009-2010
Acrylic on paper on board
34” x 48”
Telephone Me, 2008
Acrylic on paper on board
50” x 34”
Phillip Glass-Satyagraha, 2009-2010
Acrylic on paper on board
34” x 48”
French Secret, 2012-2014
Acrylic and photo transfer on board
34” x 48”
I Am Big Heaven, 2012-2014
Acrylic and photo transfer on board
34” x 48”
Red Shield, 2018
Acrylic on canvas
48” x 30”
Ok Got It, 2022
Acrylic on paper on board
24” x 18”
Ward Schumaker stopped painting at the age of 22 after the governor of his home state of Nebraska labeled his work “pornographic.” Instead, he became a singing waiter, a paper salesman and a designer of Snoopy merchandise. At 35 he began illustrating and for the next 30 years worked for (among others) the New York Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Washington Post and Le Figaro; The New Yorker, Poetry and Esquire Japan; Hermès, United Airlines and Herman Miller. At age 58 he began painting again. Today, at 82, he has had 30 solo shows—here and in New York, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Shanghai and Nashville. His work appears in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation (San Francisco), the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento), the Letterform Archive (San Francisco), the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE) and the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers (New Brunswick, NJ). This show includes 16 of his favorite works, from 2005 to this year. Schumaker lives in San Francisco with his wife, artist Vivienne Flesher.